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Your Questions…Answered

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A loyal Million Mile Secrets reader SH (Thank You, SH!) suggests answering reader posts on the blog. I’m going to do just that, but with a slight twist.

Every week or so, I’m going to post a reader question on the blog and ask you to write in your suggestions in the comments. After a few days, I’ll compile the responses along with my thoughts and publish it on the blog!

So please email me if you have a question which you’d like answered.

Today’s Question

Rebeca writes in asking which is the better card – The Capital One Venture Card or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card? She writes:

“The sign on bonus (for the Capital One Venture card) is only 25000, but with double points per dollar I think they would add up quickly if I actually used this on for my everyday spending. I usually put about 1200 or 1500 on my card every month and pay the balance in full.”

Additional Information

Rebeca will use her miles and points for economy class air tickets to get from the West Coast to London next year (ideally with a stop over in New York or Washington, DC. to see family)

She will be traveling with a family of 6, so using miles or points to buy, say, 2 or 3 tickets would save Rebeca a lot of cash!

Rebeca would like a credit card with no foreign transaction fee since she will use the card overseas.

She doesn’t plan on taking out any big loans in the next few years.

Questions

1) Which credit card should Rebeca get? The Capital One Venture card or the Chase Sapphire Preferred card?

And for extra credit:

2) What else would you suggest Rebeca do to help reduce the cost of traveling to Europe?

Please let Rebeca know how to have Big Travel with Small Money in the comments below!

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Editorial Disclaimer: Neither the editorial content nor the comments on this site are provided by the companies whose products are featured. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or evaluations provided here are those of the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the Advertiser.

Great website! After reading your post about the 75,000 mile Citi Visa card I applied for the card through a link on this website. Today I received my card. The first think I did after I activated my card was register the card with my Hilton Gold account for the 5000 bonus points. Thanks, for all the great posts. Now I have enough for my Husband and I to fly First Class to Europe next year.

I agree that if her credit is decent, there's no need to limit it to one card. Looking to travel next year, there's actually not that much time to accumulate via monthly spend. Her ~$15K of annual spend won't be enough to cover even one ticket to Europe with most cards & programs. So the advice is to focus for now on the sign up bonuses, and meeting any minimum-spend requirements to earn them. Consider multiple cards for herself; and for other credit-worthy family members as well.

There's some research to be done on that front, but I'd start by looking at AA, because their award tickets allow a free stopover at the North American gateway. So a coach award travel one-way LAX-JFK (stopover) JFK-LHR is just 30K miles, or 20K miles off-peak (Oct. 15 - May 15). I've seen recent sign-up bonuses from Citi of 50K, 75K, 100K even. Not sure which ones are still active, but even two 50K bonuses (say, for a Visa and an Amex) plus her usual spend would be enough to cover 2 or 3 roundtrips, including the stopover.

I agree with Craig that she apply for both cards if possible to get both enrollment bonuses, and then use the Cap One for daily spending. If not, then she should go for the Capital One Venture card due to the double points per dollar spent.

I am assuming Rebecca doesn't frequently travel abroad so getting a card that doesn't charge a foreign transaction fee shouldn't be a top priority. I travel internationally and just withdraw $ from my ATM card to pay for everything (yes, even hotel bills).

Editorial Note: Neither the editorial content nor the comments on this site are provided by the companies whose products are featured. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or evaluations provided here are those of the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the Advertiser.

Advertiser Disclosure: Many of the credit card offers that appear on this site are from credit card issuers from which MillionMileSecrets.com receives compensation. Compensation does not impact the placement of cards on Million Mile Secrets other than in banner advertising. MillionMileSecrets.com does not include all credit card offers that might be available to consumers in the marketplace.